{"id":288289,"date":"2024-05-27T07:00:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-27T07:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=288289"},"modified":"2024-05-28T06:47:23","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T06:47:23","slug":"as-nato-moves-to-allow-ukraine-to-bomb-russia-with-its-weapons-kremlin-floats-possible-ukraine-cease-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=288289","title":{"rendered":"As NATO moves to allow Ukraine to bomb Russia with its weapons, Kremlin floats possible Ukraine cease-fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alex Lantier \u2013 World Socialist Website May 25, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenburg. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Yesterday, as the Ukrainian regime fired a wave of US-supplied, long-range ATACMS missiles at Russian forces in Crimea, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called for a vast escalation of the war, in which Ukraine would use NATO missiles to bomb Russia.<\/p>\n

NATO\u2019s escalation, in response to the accelerating collapse of the Ukrainian armed forces, is rapidly exposing its own lies about the war. As Stoltenberg made his remarks to The Economist<\/em>, Reuters was publishing a collection of interviews with top associates of Russian President Vladimir Putin, appealing to the NATO powers for a cease-fire and warning of the danger of nuclear war. It is not Moscow, but the NATO powers led by Washington that are driving the war, threatening the rapid outbreak of total war in Europe and worldwide.<\/p>\n

Echoing remarks by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, Stoltenberg called for Ukraine to use long-range NATO missiles to bomb Russia. \u201cThe time has come for allies to consider whether they should lift some of the restrictions they have put on the use of weapons they have donated to Ukraine,\u201d he said. He added, \u201cto deny Ukraine the possibility of using these weapons against legitimate military targets on Russian territory makes it very hard for them to defend themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will not be party to the conflict,\u201d Stoltenberg promised. However, he promptly argued that NATO should give Ukraine a blank check to use its weapons for whatever strikes it pleases against targets in Russia, stating: \u201cUkraine has the right to defend themselves. And that includes striking targets on Russian territory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stoltenberg hides his reckless proposal for escalation behind the lie that this will not involve NATO in a shooting war with Russia. But in ruling circles, this is well known to be false. The leak of a call between German military officers revealed that US and British troops are already in Ukraine to help Ukrainian troops target missiles launched against Russia. On this basis, Russian officials have threatened to attack NATO countries giving Ukraine weapons to bomb Russia.<\/p>\n

Stoltenberg argued that improving NATO\u2019s strategy meant taking all necessary measures to inflict a humiliating and devastating defeat upon Russia. The problem with current strategy, he claimed, is that NATO governments want \u201cUkraine to win in a way that Russia does not lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

A central difficulty the ruling elites face is deep popular opposition to direct NATO involvement in the war. Polls show 68 percent of Frenchmen, 80 percent of Germans and 90 percent of Poles oppose moves like sending troops to Ukraine that could lead to total war. However, there remains a substantial underestimation in the population of the danger that the NATO imperialist powers will succeed in triggering such a war in the near future.<\/p>\n

Stoltenberg advanced a justification for attacking Russia, even if Russia had not physically attacked NATO. Claiming that NATO allegations of Russian cyber attacks could trigger an invocation of Article 5 of the NATO treaty to justify war, he said: \u201cIf there\u2019s a magnitude [reached in Russian cyber attacks] \u2026 then we can trigger Article 5 and respond in cyber, but also in other domains to protect the NATO allies.\u201d<\/p>\n

This statement is staggering. Cyber attacks are extremely difficult to trace, and a cyber attack could easily be launched from computers based in Russia by someone outside Russia; however, this would nonetheless still serve, by Stoltenberg\u2019s reasoning, as a justification for NATO military action against Russia. In an act of utter and monumental recklessness, he is providing a rationale for military aggression against a major nuclear-armed power.<\/p>\n

NATO officials\u2019 calls for military action that Moscow has said will lead to total war shows that, in the ruling classes of key NATO countries, the decision for war with Russia has already been taken. Leading politicians in NATO member states are admitting that such a war is being actively planned.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told Russian state media outlet RT: \u201cWhat is happening today in Brussels and Washington\u2026 looks like warming up for a possible direct military conflict. We can safely call it the preparation of Europe\u2019s entry into the war.\u201d He added, according to RT, that \u201cthere are working groups within NATO that are assessing the best ways for the bloc to further boost its participation in the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Orban claimed his government was wants to find ways to avoid becoming involved in the war that NATO is feverishly planning against Russia: \u201cHungary\u2019s position must be redefined, our lawyers and officials are working on ways to allow Hungary to continue to exist as a NATO member without participating in NATO activities outside the bloc\u2019s territory. We need to create a new approach, a new definition for our position as a pro-peace force within NATO.\u201d<\/p>\n

These promises are worthless. If NATO attacks Russia, Hungary\u2014like other Eastern European states whose leaders express concerns over the war, such as Slovakia and Bulgaria\u2014will be swept up in a continent-wide and global war and devastated, whatever their governments\u2019 legal position. Unless the war is rapidly stopped, moreover, they and most of the world will be incinerated by nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

There is no national path to averting the catastrophe NATO is setting into motion. The disastrous implications of the Stalinist regimes\u2019 dissolution of the Soviet Union and their restoration of capitalism across Eastern Europe in 1989-1991 are ever more apparent. The imperialist powers were allowed to play the ex-Soviet republics off against each other, using Ukraine as a base for war with Russia, and Eastern Europe joined a NATO alliance that, under rhetoric about human rights and democracy, ruthlessly wages imperialist wars.<\/p>\n

The bankruptcy of any nationally-based opposition to imperialism emerges clearly in the policy of Putin. He launched his reactionary invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to try to compel the NATO powers to negotiate a deal with him to stop arming Ukraine against Russia, hoping that Russia\u2019s vast military power would bring the NATO powers to the negotiating table. But this proved to be an illusion. Even as Russia\u2019s military crushes NATO-armed Ukrainian units on the battlefield, the NATO powers are doubling down on plans for regime change or war against Russia.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Reuters carried a report titled \u201cPutin wants Ukraine ceasefire on current front lines,\u201d based on interviews with five top Russian officials it described as \u201cfamiliar with discussions in Putin\u2019s entourage\u201d or as having \u201cworked with Putin.\u201d These individuals all stressed that the Kremlin does not plan to press its military advantage to seize large amounts of Ukrainian territory and is desperate for a ceasefire with NATO.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutin can fight for as long as it takes, but Putin is also ready for a ceasefire\u2014to freeze the war,\u201d one source told Reuters. This person, Reuters added, said Putin \u201chad expressed frustration to a small group of advisers about what he views as Western-backed attempts to stymie negotiations and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy\u2019s decision to rule out talks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another source, stressing that Russia\u2019s current offensive does not aim to crush the Ukrainian army and regime, promised: \u201cPutin will slowly conquer territories until [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelenskiy comes up with an offer to stop\u201d the war.<\/p>\n

These sources stressed that Putin is concerned about popular opposition inside Russia to being drafted for the war, and also about nuclear war. \u201cTwo of the sources cited Russian concerns about the growing danger of escalation with the West, including nuclear escalation, over the Ukraine standoff,\u201d Reuters reported, adding: \u201cThree sources said Putin understood any dramatic new advances would require another nationwide mobilisation, which he didn\u2019t want.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments of Stoltenberg, Blinken and Cameron show, however, that the NATO powers have no interest in reaching a deal with Putin. They are targeting Russia and Putin in a war for regime change. A catastrophic escalation of what has in effect already emerged as a Third World War in Europe can only be averted by the building of a mass, socialist movement against imperialist war in the working class, unifying workers in struggle against both the NATO governments and their allies, and Putin\u2019s post-Soviet Russian capitalist regime.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is not Moscow, but the NATO powers led by Washington that are driving the war, threatening the rapid outbreak of a wider, more intense conflict in Europe and worldwide<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=288289"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288289\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":288324,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288289\/revisions\/288324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}